Thursday, August 14, 2014

There is something terribly wrong in this country.Well, actually, there are a lot of
things wrong in this country but what I want to focus on here is the police.

The shooting, by police, of an unarmed teen in Missouri is
just the most recent display of police power gone to the lunatic fringe of our
society.As of this morning, the
name of the office who shot him has still not been released. If anyone else had shot this teen, the name would already be in every newspaper in the nation.

I’m not going to go into the racial aspect of this whole
thing – even though I believe it to be a huge underlying problem.What I am going to talk about are the
police forces and officers themselves.

When I was a girl, the police either were plain-clothes detectives or wore regular blue
uniforms, neatly pressed and looking good.These men (mostly men), some of whom were closely related to me, were
easily recognizable in marked squad cars and walking down the streets of our
town.They carriedpistols holstered in squeaky,
well-cared-for leather and their badges were on full display on their
chests.We thought of the police
as our protectors and mediators in disputes.Sometimes they arrested people for breaking the law.This was all expected.

Today, a reporter sitting in a McDonald’s at this computer
is told that he is trespassing and is pushed and shoved and arrested and carted
off to jail by police wearing what can only be described as camouflage military
combat gear and carrying assault weapons.

They travel in packs in armored vehicles resembling hardened military
tank-like vehicles.Their demeanor
is that of the belligerent, immature, testosterone-doped, uneducated bully with
the unbridled power of the law shielding him.

These combat-ready bullies stay on the edge of anger where
the slightest tic can push them over into brutality.Women are beaten about the head in broad daylight until they
are completely senseless and, perhaps, damaged for life.Teenagers are shot dead in the
streets.Homes at wrong addresses are
entered, without warrants, and ransacked.Peaceful demonstrators are maced and beaten.Pets are shot dead by these criminal police.

Yes. I said
criminal police.Who would have
thought that, in the United States of America, these type crimes would be
committed by our own whose job it is to protect us?The big
question today is, how are these police officers selected for the job?What kind of scrutiny are they put under
before they are handed a weapon and a badge?What kind of psychiatric examinations are they given to weed
out the power-mad bullies among the candidates?What safeguards are in place to rid the ranks of these
bullies once they are already years on the force? What mindset is it that requires tanks and assault weapons against the very people they are supposed to be defending?

I don’t have the answers to these questions.But I know this:our civilian police forces should NEVER
look in any way military.They
should not be carrying military weapons.They should not be driving military vehicles.They are there – they SHOULD be there – to protect and
defend us.NOT to harass us.NOT to beat us.NOT to falsely arrest us.NOT to deny us our rights. NOT to shoot our pets.

There are some things really wrong in this country.And one of the really wrong somethings
is our collective civilian police force that has become nearly
indistinguishable from our military.